Paul McCartney Didn’t Say a Single ‘Sensible Word’ After Brian Epstein Died, Said a Beatles Associate

In 1967, The Beatles’ longtime manager, Brian Epstein, died, leaving Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr to handle themselves. According to an associate of the band’s, David Puttnam, Epstein did a great deal to hold them together. After Epstein died, Puttnam said the band’s ability to make good decisions fell apart.

Paul McCartney and the rest of The Beatles made bad business moves after Brian Epstein died

After Epstein’s unexpected death, The Beatles were left to manage themselves. Puttnam, who became a film producer, said the band lacked “stability” when they lost their manager.

“I remember the moment that Brian died,” Puttnam said in the book All You Need Is Love: The Beatles in Their Own Words by Steven Gaines and Peter Brown. “Oh God, they seemed to begin to be entirely self-destructive, entirely. From that moment onwards, I don’t remember hearing from Paul a sensible word, not one, single … I don’t remember a cohesive idea was followed through.”

He said the entire band dedicated themselves to hair-brained schemes that made little sense to outsiders.

“They were mad,” Puttnam said. “It was like everything flew apart. It was one lunatic scheme after another.”

Paul McCartney admitted that the band struggled after Brian Epstein’s death

While Puttnam said McCartney rarely made sense after Epstein’s death, the bassist acknowledged that he had held the band together. The Beatles struggled to work together without their manager.

“It’s discipline we lack,” he said in The Beatles: Get Back. “We’ve never had discipline. We had a sort of slight, symbolic discipline. Like Mr. Espstein. You know, he sort of said, ‘Get suits on,’ and we did, you know. And so we were always fighting that discipline a bit. There really is no one there now to say, ‘Do it.’ Where is, there always used to be. Daddy’s gone away now, and we’re on our own at the holiday camp. I think we either go home or we do it. I think we’ve got a bit shy, you know?”

They hired another manager, Allen Klein, and he only introduced more chaos to the band. McCartney did not support the decision to hire him, he argued with his bandmates frequently over business decisions. Less than three years after Epstein’s death, the band broke up.

He had a complicated relationship with the band’s manager

McCartney and Epstein had a complicated relationship. Epstein believed this stemmed from the fact that McCartney believed he was closer to Lennon than to him. Epstein fretted over this dynamic.

“Paul was the only one who ever gave him any little worries when he rang up to complain about something, or ask things,” Epstein’s assistant, Joanne, said in the book The Beatles: The Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies. “The others might ask exactly the same, but he always worried more about pleasing Paul. He could be upset by talking to Paul on the phone, but never by any of the others.”